Trevin Wax (is it just me or does that sound like a Jedi name), with The Gospel Coalition, recently put up a great interview with Jonathan Rogers in which they discuss O’Connor’s work and Jonathan’s new book, The Terrible Speed of Mercy. Great reading. Here’s an exerpt:
Though O’Connor was writing from a distinctly Christian worldview, religious readers didn’t seem to understand her any better than the literary elite, and they liked her less. She was misunderstood because she was writing into a culture that expected Christian truth to be nice and safe and tidy, and she refused to accommodate those expectations. The Jesus of O’Connor’s fiction is a “wild ragged figure,” not the sort of fellow you would invite to Sunday dinner unless you were ready to get your table tipped over. I’m reluctant to use the term “prophetic” to describe O’Connor’s work, but I will say that her fiction is uncomfortable and offensive in some of the ways that the Old Testament prophets’ words were uncomfortable and offensive to their original audience. For that matter, Jesus’s parables are calculated to offend and are easily misunderstood.
Read the entire interview here.